I’m an advisor, speaker and author writing about the intersection of money and life. I’m not spouting untested philosophy—I work with clients and advisors as a Wealth Advisor and the Director of Personal Finance for Buckingham and the BAM Alliance, a community of investors and advisors who've discovered a better way to take control of financial futures and achieve life's most important goals. I’m thankful to have had my guidance vetted by one of the world’s best publishers through my book co-authored with Jim Stovall, "The Ultimate Financial Plan" (John Wiley & Sons). Most importantly, I’m living this stuff out in my foremost roles in life as a husband and father. A student of communication, I enjoy the practice in television (CNBC, ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox) radio (NPR) and print (featured in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Kiplinger’s and Money magazines, among others).

You Might Be An Underachiever If...

Here’s some humor and inspiration to send you into your weekend—another phenomenal guest post from my friend, mentor and co-author of The Ultimate Financial Plan, Jim Stovall—that is sure to make you laugh and think.

Success is a wonderful concept. It is self-defining and self-fulfilling. Once we get past our school years with standardized tests and regular percentage grades, we emerge into the adult world where, to a great extent, we get to determine what is important to us.

In school, the labels “achiever” or “underachiever” are determined as compared to your fellow students; however, in the real adult world, you and I get to decide what is important to us and what levels we want to achieve in our lives. Only you and I know whether we are overachieving or underachieving because we establish the rules, set the target, and create the timeframe and deadlines in our own minds. There is probably no greater factor in our own personal satisfaction in life than our own assessment of whether we are overachieving or underachieving as it relates to our own goals.

Since the concept of achieving is elusive and hard to define, I thought I would borrow a time-tested technique from the comedian and entertainer Jeff Foxworthy. Mr. Foxworthy has singlehandedly elevated the term Redneck from an insult to a point of pride among many people simply by helping his audiences define the term. With that in mind, we can take a look at the term underachiever as it relates to your own personal goals that you have established for yourself and your life.

If the last goal you set for yourself involved a science fair project in the seventh grade, you might be an underachiever.

If you spend more time watching television every day than you spend on your own personal development in a year, you might be an underachiever.

If the last 10 books you read all involved comic character superheroes, you might be an underachiever.

If you consider the act of getting off the couch to change the batteries in the remote control to be vigorous exercise, you might be an underachiever.

If you have more creditors calling you than friends calling you, you might be an underachiever.

If the majority of your life savings is loose change that fell out of your pocket into the car seat or recliner, you might be an underachiever.

If you have more premium channels on your TV than you have biographies on your shelf, you might be an underachiever.

If friends, family members, acquaintances, and pets avoid you when they want to have a good day, you might be an underachiever.

If you spend more time planning your three-day weekend than you spend planning your life goals, you might be an underachiever.

If the greatest success you ever had or ever hope to have came during a Little League game when Richard Nixon was president, you might be an underachiever.

If you instantly know who got voted off the island, who picked which idol, and who’s dancing with what star, but you don’t have advisors and mentors, you might be an underachiever.

At the risk of encroaching on Jeff Foxworthy’s space, sometimes it’s easier to define what we don’t want and change it than to define what we do want and obtain it.

As you go through your day today, define your own success, set your own goals, and become an achiever.

Today’s the day!

Jim Stovall is the president of Narrative Television Network, as well as a published author of many books including The Ultimate Gift. He is also a columnist and motivational speaker. He may be reached at 5840 South Memorial Drive, Suite 312, Tulsa, OK 74145-9082; by email at Jim@JimStovall.com; or on Facebook at www.facebook.com/jimstovallauthor.

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